Decentralized Zero-Trust Authorization via Token Exchange
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current Zero-Trust (ZT) authorization approaches in network environments are centralized, requiring tight coupling between services and resources, limiting flexibility and scalability, especially in multi-tenant scenarios, and failing to support decentralized use cases.
Innovation Solution
A decentralized, fine-grained authorization system that relies on Zero-Trust principles, using a token exchange service to verify identities and operations independently of resource ownership, allowing services to validate signed assertions without direct knowledge of policy decisions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If centralized authorization is used to ensure direct knowledge of network activity and policy evaluation data, then authorization reliability is improved, but system flexibility and scalability deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The authorization system is segmented into independent components: resource owners manage their own data and policies, services enforce policies locally, and token exchange services facilitate decentralized authentication. This segmentation eliminates the need for a single centralized authorization server while maintaining authorization reliability through distributed policy evaluation.
Solution Approach 2:
A token exchange service acts as an intermediary between services and resource owners, enabling decentralized authorization without requiring direct communication between all system components. The service validates tokens issued by the token exchange service, which in turn relies on trusted data sources, creating a chain of trust that maintains reliability while enabling flexibility.
2Manufacturing precision
If centralized authorization is implemented to maintain direct knowledge of network activity, then policy enforcement accuracy is improved, but system complexity and coupling increase
Solution Approach 1:
Services perform self-authorization by validating tokens against policies enforced by the token exchange service. Resource owners independently manage their own data and authorization policies without requiring centralized management. This self-service approach maintains policy enforcement accuracy while reducing system complexity by eliminating tight coupling between components.
Solution Approach 2:
Authorization policies and data are prepared in advance by resource owners and stored in trusted data sources. The token exchange service pre-establishes trust relationships with these data sources, enabling services to enforce policies accurately without requiring real-time centralized coordination, thus reducing system complexity.
3Adaptability or versatility
If decentralized authorization is implemented to improve flexibility and scalability, then system adaptability is improved, but direct knowledge of policy decisions is lost
Solution Approach 1:
The token exchange service provides feedback mechanisms to services about authorization decisions and policy evaluations. Services can query the token exchange service for policy information and validation results, maintaining knowledge of policy decisions in a decentralized manner without requiring centralized control.
Solution Approach 2:
The token exchange service serves as an intermediary that preserves and communicates policy decision information between resource owners and services. It maintains trusted data sources that contain policy decisions and provides this information to services through token validation, preventing loss of policy knowledge while enabling decentralized operation.
4Measurement precision
If services directly communicate with decision-makers for authorization, then authorization accuracy is improved, but system scalability deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The token exchange service acts as an intermediary between services and resource owners, consolidating authorization decisions in a centralized location while enabling decentralized enforcement. Services validate tokens issued by the token exchange service rather than communicating directly with individual resource owners, maintaining authorization accuracy through trusted intermediaries while improving scalability by reducing the number of direct communication channels required.
Data Source
AI summary
Architectures and techniques are described that can provide decentralized, zero-trust authorization according to variable fine-grained policies For example, an authorization server can receive an authorization request from a requesting device. The authorization request can comprise a reference address to a resource, in which case resource data can be fetched, or comprise a signed entity indicative of the resource. In either case, resource data used to evaluate a policy can be obtained and, if an associated policy evaluation is authorized, the authorization request can be validated and an associated token can be provided to the requesting device, which can then be transmitted along with an API call to a service through which a resource is provided.